The high-definition optical media format war has been
brewing for a while now and none of the two, Blu-ray or HD DVD, has come up
ahead of the other in terms of adoption by the big name studios. NewScientistTech is reporting that a
couple of engineers at Warner, Alan Bell and Lewis Ostrover have come up with
the idea of a hybrid
disc that will hold not only standard DVD and HD DVD content which we have
seen before, but also Blu-ray content all on a single optical disc.

The way this is said to work by the two engineers is that
the HD DVD format uses 0.6mm deep pits to store data while Blu-ray uses 0.1mm
deep pits. If a Blu-ray layer is placed on top of an HD DVD layer, it can allow
enough of the laser to shine through to read the underlying HD DVD layer but
also be able to reflect enough light for a Blu-ray player to read the disc. The
standard DVD layer can then be manufactured on the opposite side of the media
to keep it separate because of the difference in lasers used.

Of course, the costs to manufacture such media would increase but even then it
would be much more economical to produce a single triple-format disc than to
press 3 types of media separately for the same content, according to NewScientistTech.

quote: ...greedy media companies who should of come up with a single format to begin with.

Actually they're probably the biggest losers (financially) in this whole deal. They were all expecting to be reaping the higher profit margins of one of these new formats a year or two ago. All the delays and lost sales as consumer (intelligently) wait for the dust to settle is costing the media companies.

Of course, most of these companies, along with the hardware makers that are similarly suffering lost revenue, have their collective heads shoved sufficiently far up where the sun don't shine that they aren't likely to recognize this.